M2A1- The tweets about #highered

While monitoring Twitter for the use of #highered there was a large variety of issues and questions that were being posed by users and even articles used by higher education organizations. I saw many tweets about listening to students and their needs and wants and one tweet directed me to an article about the University of Nebraska and their upcoming school elections. The students on the University of Nebraska campus are wanting to establish an annual fee for students that would be put towards environmental sustainability projects on the campus (Dunker, 2015). I find this a breath of fresh air and a showing that higher education officials should listen to their student body and consider the ideas that they have and the money they are willing to put into improving and support their campus.

Another strong theme I saw being promoted was geared towards PhD student studies. I saw tweets about tips for the completion of a thesis to an article about how post doctorate students make the best industry employees. I mean we all know that doctorate students put in a lot of hours towards their education but in all honestly how does your degree level determine that at all. What I did find interesting was the amount of money that doctorate students actually made and how many man hours in a day they put towards their studies and experiments. Many doctorate students have more than twenty years of schooling, work long hours, performing complicated experiments and making around 42,000 a year while doing all this work for their degrees (Cheeky Scientest, 2015). Now an argument could be made that some undergraduate students and even adult learners like all of us, work full time while handling our case load as well. I think any level of education requires sacrifices, dedication and long man hours and any student should be praised for their work and for bettering their lives in the long run.

I will say that Higher Education has its own Twitter account and many of the things they tweet about are being retweeted and favorited by many of their followers. A side note is that Higher Education is the same account that has been catering towards PhD students during this time frame as well. I also saw some diversity pieces being retweeted and favorited multiple times and shared with users as well.

In summation, going into this research I was thinking that #highered was something that wasn’t going to be even mentioned on Twitter but this research proved me wrong. I found that higher education was something that was in full force in the Twitter land and something that many users and organizations feel strong about and support by retweeting and forwarding the articles that take on a meaning with them.

Cheeky Scientist. (2015). Why Postdocs Make the Best Industry Employees.